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Steve Wozniak Drops Facebook: 'The Profits Are All Based On the User's Info' (arstechnica.com)
Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has formally deactivated his Facebook account. In an email interview with USA Today, Wozniak wrote that he was no longer satisfied with Facebook, knowing that it makes money off of user data. "The profits are all based on the user's info, but the users get none of the profits back," he wrote. "Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product." Ars Technica reports: His Sunday announcement to his Facebook followers came just ahead of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's scheduled testimony before Congress on Tuesday. The CEO is also reportedly set to meet with members of Congress privately on Monday. Wozniak wrote that Facebook had "brought me more negatives than positives." Still, when Wozniak tried to change some of his privacy settings in the aftermath of Cambridge Analytica, he said he was "surprised" to find out how many categories for ads he had to remove. "I did not feel that this is what people want done to them," added Wozniak. "Ads and spam are bad things these days and there are no controls over them. Or transparency."
Welcome to 2007!
My facebook page is under a ficticious name and I was born in 1901 and I work at Initech. Have fun scraping useful data from me.
Wozniak wrote that he was no longer satisfied with Facebook, knowing that it makes money off of user data.
Are you just figuring that out Steve or were you once okay with that arrangement and have since soured on it?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I've been a fan of Woz's ever since I bought my first Apple ][, but, really? Only now are you realising that FB makes its money from your data?
For a super-bright guy, he seems a bit slow on the up-take...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Did he announce this via twitter?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That is all.
is this the same click-bait article I saw posted on Reddit where it was titled Woz "leaving Facebook" (like he was an employee there), only to have the article explain they meant closing his account, and then at the end of the article reveal he didn't even delete the profile in the end, because he didn't want someone else taking his username?
First he was going to use "courage" as the reason for dropping his account but...oh...wait...
Facebook sells data. That's how it makes money. That's their business. Facebook gives people an easy way to blog and then they monetize the shit out of your data.
Did people think Facebook did this out of the goodness of their hearts?
Dropping Facebook because you've *finally* clued in to their business model and it bothers you, or being just another grandstander whose virtue signalling his moral indignation with Facebook. Either way, you've just shot yourself in the foot. As the old saying goes: it's better to remain silent and have others think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
The Facebook users don't get financial compensation, but they do get value from the service that Facebook provides.
I wonder though, is Google in a different category? Is it fine to make all your money off of advertising, which is selling your users' eyeballs? If Facebook had ads on every page, would it still count as 'the users being the product?' Oh wait, it says in the Summary that he doesn't like ads or spam. (Not a Facebook user...didn't know how many ads were there.)
So that means Google is exactly the same? They provide a free service, (or dozens of free services) as they sell your eyeballs and clicks to various advertisers. Is he dropping Google as well? Or are Google services worth it while Facebook isn't?
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
You are an idiot.
So I guess its time to Drop Google also since.... Google uses your data to sell Ads... Oh My.. Or the Internet...
What I'd really like to know is how much of the ghost profile they have built on me was made available through these wonderful API's? I would hope they mostly use that internally, but really what is the hope that's true?
For all of its faults, facebook has merit in being an all-in-one solution for keeping in touch with people you know and following people and groups that serve particular interests.
Of course one alternative is to go outside and meet real people, but the point of using facebook was, at least in my view, to connect with people that you wouldn't otherwise ever meet in real life. As people who I have genuine interests in are leaving facebook, I see no obvious alternative to it anywhere on the horizon.
So.... serious question. Deactivate facebook and go where, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I figured Facebook would go the way of AOL eventually. But not this way.
AOL suffered a long, painful, pathetic death. Looks like FaceBook will be put down pretty soon compared to AOL.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Sure, it was a surprise to Steve. Not because now the whole "we care about your data" is gathering momentum, and companies left and right jump on it, pretending to be nice, to get publicity brownie points. What's next, google execs deactivating facebook accounts and claiming to care about our data/privacy?. Mind you, the faster FB falls, the better.
This is not actually true. Facebook sells advertising in the main, it is the over targeting of that which is the problem. They have just copied from google in a bit more not bothering to protect the user. The actual selling of user data is for advertising or targeting ads as core business. When it comes to politically targeted ads it is the same thing.
What are they doing wrong? It is not that the core business is broken it is that they have let the cat out of the bag and there is lots of "customers" expecting a lot of disclosure about users to help target the advertising. It may seem wrong but this is not just facebook it is a combination of them and others and particularly the advertisers. I have run ads on facebook and youtube and the main advantage was not demographics but geography for me as you are able to target a particular zone. Such as around your school, saying there is a fair on. In your street saying come get a coffee. These are great and part of the game. Perhaps FB should offer a paid version that is ad free and all your data is locked but simply letting people choose everything that is disclosed would help a lot.
The problem with leaving FB is people are grandstanding in saying it but FB does offer some great stuff and is a useful tool.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
Everyone knew Facebook was selling User Data, that was never up for debate.
Okay, Dave, since the above AC seems to be spot-on about you: "With Apple, the iPhone is the product. With Facebook, you are the product." Still confused? Thought so.
Apple is behind in the AI race, and wants FB's engineers. That's the puzzle piece that makes this coordinated (and incredulous) attack by Woz & Cook make sense.
I'm the product coz I had to watch all them damn superbowl ads whilst getting nothing in return.
What do you mean? One watches the SuperBowl for the ads. The game? The whole twenty minutes that you get in the three-hour broadcast? Hardly worth the while.
If Woz if claiming that Apple isn't making it's money off of you, he is confused about how walled gardens work. Facebook collects users' data, walls it off, and sells access. Apple collects users, walls them off, and sells access.
There is a difference there, in that a person can choose to forgo anything that they've invested in Apple products and leave. Facebook allows you no such option to leave. So I'm not claiming that the two are equivalent, but you are still the product in Apple's model.
... anytime you like, but you can never leave.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
News Flash!
Selling your name, address, phone, answers to survey questions and such were standard operating procedures for magazines and other membership organizations for centuries. Yes, literally.
You didn't really think your paltry magazine subscription price paid for the magazine did you? Even the ads weren't enough. Magazines have traditionally made money by selling your information. This is exactly what Facebook does - but FB does it far better.
You're not paying for the service in cash so you pay another way.
Relax and lie a little. Don't give out your details if you don't want to or give misleading information. They'll still glean info but what's the real deal?
What are they doing wrong?
In my opinion, not a thing. It's a bartering system. "You publish my data and link it for me and you can monetize it." That's why I support Moviepass "tracking" their customers directly before and after a movie. You give me free tickets & I give you some info. Perfectly acceptable.
People are losing their minds because some of them found out that Trump may have used some of the data. Those same people completely ignored that Facebook & google gave multiples of that data away for free to politicians the aforementioned companies supported. I intentionally left my initial message apolitical, but going over why people are losing their shit means politics.
Facebook business model has been obvious fore years, how could it take so long to realize?
Derp!
Beware of the Leopard.
They sell advertising services just like almost all magazines, television networks, cinemas, etc do.
Wrong. It's very unlike what those others do, because they are actually selling personally identifiable information about people who have identities.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
WE KNEW THIS FOR NEARLY A DECADE.
You either don't really care and just keep using it, being selective with what you put on there, OR you ditch it.
This sudden revelation is hardly new. I'm not even being an elitist nerd "oh how passe *WE* knew all along" it's common knowledge, it's been in the paper before, multiple times, we KNOW this, everyone knows this, christ there's 2 movies about the site for goodness sakes.
This sudden revelation is insane, fad, metoo, zeitgeist bullshit.
I'm not closing my account, but there's barely anything on there, I use it to speak to less technically inclined friends and family.
I call BS. Facebook sells a fortune in ads. Every 5th item you see while scrolling is a "sponsored" post (aka Advertisement). They fetch between $7 and $10 CPM just to promote a page (that is paying to promote a *page* that is already part of their system). Maybe they make some additional profit selling "user data", but you'd better believe most of the profit is directly from ads.
Better known as 318230.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But perhaps the Apple Board of Directors should give Wozniak a job again. Chief Culture Officer. Reporting directly to the Board and Woz's only role/power is he can veto anything Apple management does that he deems inconsistent with the company's core principles. Think of it like an internal auditor, if you will.
I literally BEGGED him to come back after SJ's death.
Rock on.
Deactivated 2 years ago. I missed it for about 4 minutes. I've found out that i still keep in touch with the people i care about. I know how they are doing, what's going on in their lives. I just don't know what they had for lunch. Plus I'm much happier not reading the political BS of people who shouldn't be in the business of running their own lives let alone anyone else's. (Yes FB calls them "Friends". Where's the "Acquaintances" designation when you really want it?)
making money from the free flow of information
For years...decades.... slashdot has droned on about how "data want's to be free" and open. Why the change of heart?
So, is he going to strictly use duckduckgo and CloudFlare's 1.1.1.1 DNS service?
You seem unfamiliar with the concepts of zoning and height restriction which generally restricts billboards to highway roadsides and other undesirable locations.
I've never signed up for FB. Do they gather info on me?
Yes. If any of your friends have allowed Facebook access to their contacts, then they will have put you in a social graph. If you don't clear or block Facebook tracking cookies, they will record your web browsing.
Does FB sell info on me? I have no membership and therefore no relationship (using the term in a legal sense) and therefore never agreed to letting them gather or sell or aggregate info on me. I think they have said in the past that they only gather public information, which anyone has a right to do.
That's a good question and it's going to be interesting to see how the GDPR changes the answer.
Maybe FB is a top secret section of the NSA?
A big chunk of their startup capital came from a fund that is allegedly a CIA front, not NSA. It's Google that has a revolving door for employees with the NSA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
His conversation on Facebook about Steve Jobs (after the release of one of Job's biopics) was very enlightening. Before that conversation, I had a really negative image of Steve Jobs, but not anymore.